Concert-hall attire for classical musicians is usually a rather sedate affair. But with the crowd at tonight’s Met Gala dressed to the hilt in voluminous couture dresses and white-tie tails, the all-female orchestra that backed up the evening’s surprise musical guest, Frank Ocean, dialed up the glamour. The look: Dietrich-esque top hats (cocked just so), ladylike chignons, and a matching swipe of scarlet lipstick.

In the hours before the 31 members of the Charles James Orchestra took the stage, Julio Sandino, cofounder of the SoHo makeup studio Pucker, and his assistants executed the pitch-perfect bordeaux lips using NARS Satin Lip Pencil in Majella. It’s a long-wearing formula, he explained, but the wind-instrument players, with mouthpieces to contend with, called for an extra dusting of rouge-colored blush on top to set the color. (Guests who don’t care to freshen up between cocktails, take note: “It’s the same [technique]!” says Sandino. “Lipstick, blot, powder, blot—and then it stays!”)

For the crowning touch, Edward Tricomi, of New York’s Warren Tricomi salons, led a team of stylists in coiling their low buns and anchoring each hat with bobby pin after bobby pin. Simply put, he said with a laugh, “They’re not coming off.”